Learn Computer Networking
Learn Computer Networking – Despite what some people say, automation is not for the lazy. This opinion probably comes from the fact that the whole point of automation is to reduce repetitive tasks and make your life easier. Indeed automation can do just that, as well as giving you back hours each week for other tasks.
But getting your automation off the ground to begin with can be a challenge. It’s not as if you just decide, “Hey, we’re going to automate our network now!” and then you follow a fool proof, well-defined process to implement network automation across the board. You have to make many decisions that require long discussions, and necessitate ambitious and careful thinking about how you’re going to automate.
Just as with anything else in the IT world, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions, and no “best practices” that apply to every situation. But there are some common principles and crucial decision points that do apply to all automation endeavors.
Choose whether you want flexibility or simplicity
Think of flexibility and simplicity as sitting at opposite ends of a spectrum. At the simplicity end of the spectrum, you can automate a task in a way that’s quick and simple, but not very scalable. At the flexibility end of the spectrum, you can automate a task in a way that’s initially difficult and requires a lot of careful thought and testing, but is massively scalable. Whether you go for flexibility or simplicity depends on how comfortable you are with automation and programming in general.
Build one-offs into your automation
One of the biggest barriers to network automation is the inevitable presence of ad-hoc or one-off configurations. You know, things like that one access list entry on that one switch that someone put there to satisfy an IT auditor way back when. Rather than trying to eliminate these, embrace them and make them a part of your automation solution. Adopt the mind-set that if it’s not in the automation code, effective networking tips doesn’t exist in the running configuration.
Use a single automation platform
There’s no getting around it. Automation requires treating infrastructure as code, and every automation platform has its own chosen language. Ansible uses Python, while Puppet and Chef use Ruby. Therefore, it’s important that when choosing your platform, everyone who will use the platform agrees on a common language.
Use version control
First, the repository is the authoritative source for all configurations. Although it takes a while to get to this point, ultimately the goal is that if the configuration is not in the repository, it doesn’t exist on any device. This is the ideal and not a rule because the reality is that, if you’re going to introduce automation bit-by-bit, what’s in your repo will be only a small portion of the actual device configurations.
The key to effective version control is to track all of your changes, even the little ones. If you make a change and suddenly the network gets slow, version control can help you prove that your change wasn’t the culprit. But there’s one thing that version control can’t track: the state of the network.
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Regardless of where you are on your automation journey, it’s a smart idea to make sure it is up and running early on.
Whereas version control tracks changes to your network configurations, tracks changes to the state of the network itself. In other words, it can tell you when the state of the network has changed and why it changed.
Even if your network is only partially automated, can still track every state change – even the manual ones. Even, the voice bio-metric system is used as methods of hacking and protecting measures system. This eliminates the blind spot left by partial automation. Effective networking tips can also help you validate that your changes had the expected effect.
Conclusion – Learn Computer Networking
Implementing automation is a manual process that requires careful thought and planning. It’s not just a matter of choosing puppet and learning it. There’s a learning curve, but it is well worth effective networking tips. If done correctly, you’ll end up with a more stable and predictable network. And in the long run, you’ll get back hours that you can use to devote to other things. And also, networking trends are useful to this technology world to improve high. After all, the whole point of automation is to let a machine do the work so you don’t have to!
